{"id":13584,"date":"2017-12-08T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T10:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=13584"},"modified":"2017-10-19T10:44:15","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T14:44:15","slug":"emily-saliers-indi-going-solo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/08\/emily-saliers-indi-going-solo\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily Saliers: Indi-going Solo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Decatur, Georgia-based folk rock duo Indigo Girls started in the mid 1980s, but Amy Ray and Emily Saliers had been friends since childhood, and musical collaborators for some time. After some singles and an EP, Indigo Girls released their debut album, Strange Fire<\/i>, in 1987. They’ve gone on to widespread popularity, with more than fifteen albums to date. Both women have involved themselves in many other pursuits, from writing to activism. But not until 2017 has Saliers focused her efforts on making a solo album. Murmuration Nation<\/i> showcases a broader range of Saliers’ musical interests and skills; she embarked o na solo tour (with band) in October.<\/p>\n

Saliers says that a few of the songs on Murmuration Nation<\/i> are older tunes that she and Ray had never recorded. But for the most part, \u201cthe songs were new, and they were written [with me] knowing that I was going to be making an album,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I just kept writing and writing and writing.\u201d From the beginning of the project, Saliers worked closely with producer Lyris Hung \u2013 a violinist and longtime Indigo Girls associate and friend \u2013 to develop a collection of songs. \u201cI would send her parts of songs I had written, and she’d send back production ideas,\u201d Saliers says. \u201cSo we were creating the album all along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Murmuration Nation<\/i>, Saliers assembled a top-notch group of musicians, including Snarky Puppy’s Robert \u201cSput\u201d Seawright, Tedeschi Trucks Band bassist Tim LeFebre, Rachel Eckroth and Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun. That lineup helps give the album a flavor that often travels quite a distance from Indigo Girls’ signature sound. Saliers readily concedes that she \u201chad certain intentions\u201d in making the record. She says that at the top of the list was creating \u201ca record that had groove, R&B-influenced or hip-hop elements.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her goal was to make Murmuration Nation<\/i> a kind of \u201chybrid record\u201d that would combine acoustic textures, electronics and \u201csome world music influence [in the form of] the duduk, an Armenian reed instrument that I love.\u201d <\/p>\n

And on the lyrical side, Saliers sought to make the lyrics thoughtful, a quality consistently found in her work with Indigo Girls. As far as topics, she notes, \u201cthere’s a lot to think about what’s going on in the country \u2026 particularly now.\u201d She says that when writing for the album, she would often lock herself away in a little room in the office building of a friend. \u201cI sat in that room and wrote and wrote and wrote,\u201d she says. Saliers sometimes composed on ukulele, and one result of those efforts is the track \u201cPoethearted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically what happens is I\u2019ll find a chord progression, and then out of nowhere comes the content of the song,\u201d Saliers says. \u201cI very rarely sit down to write knowing what I’m going to write about.\u201d She also worked extensively on Apple Logic. She says that for one track, \u201cI just picked out a couple of loops and beats that I really liked, and then I laid down electric guitar and a chord progression.\u201d That became \u201cOK Corral,\u201d an incisive song about America’s deadly fascination with guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cLyris helped me form the arrangements,\u201d Saliers says. While \u201cOK Corral\u201d began its life as a guitar-based song, Hung completely removed guitar from the mix. \u201cIt was really hard for me to make the adjustment at first,\u201d Saliers admits with a laugh. \u201cBut she was like, ‘No, we’re going to do a spooky keyboard part here instead of the guitar.’ She had to talk me into a lot of things, and in the end I was so glad she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saliers is no stranger to Asheville; Indigo Girls have played here many times, especially in their early years, a time when there was a great cross-fertilization between the singer-songwriter music scenes in Atlanta, Athens and Asheville. For her first-ever tour under her own name, singer-guitarist Saliers has put together a band worthy of the material; Hung is featured on violin, and opening act Lucy Wainwright Roche sings harmony. The rhythm section features drummer Reade Pryor and Mars Volta bassist Juan Alderete.<\/p>\n

The burst of creativity that resulted in Saliers’ first-ever solo record seems to be continuing. While she says that the shows will feature \u201c14 of the 15 songs on the album,\u201d there may be even newer material as well. \u201cI’m kind of in the mood to write,\u201d she says, \u201cso who knows?\u201d The set will also include a few stripped-down, acoustic readings of Indigo Girls songs. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I suppose we’ll have at least one cover,\u201d Saliers teases. \u201cI can think of a song that I’ve always wanted to play. We might throw a little Hall & Oates in there; I don’t know. We’ll just have some fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saliers made her first recording more than thirty years ago, and it’s taken until 2017 to make a solo record. But fans won’t have to wait long for a follow-up. \u201cI can’t wait to do the next one,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Decatur, Georgia-based folk rock duo Indigo Girls started in the mid 1980s, but Amy Ray and Emily Saliers had been friends since childhood, and musical collaborators for some time. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[3260,3261],"class_list":["post-13584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-emily-saliers","tag-indigo-girls","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13586,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions\/13586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}